Super Happy Vegan Fried Chick’n!

The journey to making this recipe a reality has been a long one, punctuated with trial and error, heartbreak, near misses in the pits of despair and wild experimentation on the fringes of vegan cookery.

Over the years, I have lost count of the variations of the spice mix I’ve tried, ranging from the simple to the unnecessarily complex. At its zenith we had 18 herbs and spices in the mix, things had gotten out of hand…

The coating has gone through every iteration I could think of, breadcrumbs, batter, flaked corn, single dipped, double-dipped, dipped the flour coated then dipped and spice dusted….. the list of variations goes on and on. How best to cook it? Shallow fry, deep-fry, over bake? We tried everything.

There was an inspirational day when B announced ‘Paul, we need to get an air fryer’ and that was that, the final piece of the puzzle dropped in to place.

I was trying to recreate the famous brand in our little domestic kitchen and kept coming up close but ultimately falling short of the mark.

Doing the background research, it transpires that unless you have a pressure deep fat frier cooker in your kitchen then it’s impossible to get the coating the same.

I gave up multiple times, I conceded that it simply wasn’t possible to create a decent approximation of the product at home. And that’s when it hit me. I didn’t need to, I had arrived at an excellent product that was of itself, brilliant.

And it is this that we share with you, after five years of not quite getting it right but being really close, we got it right.

We really hope you enjoy this, it’s been emotional!

Super Happy Vegan Air Fried Chick’n

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 23 minutes
Marinade and Resting time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 38 minutes
Course: Main Meals, Snacks
Cuisine: American
Diet: Vegan
Keyword: seitan
Author: Paul

Ingredients

Seitan Chick'n

Spice Mix

  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp vegan stock
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp onion granules
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tsp mustard powder
  • 1 tsp mild chilli powder (or hotter if you prefer)
  • 4 tbsp nutritional yeast (nooch)

Coating

  • 25g corn flour (corn starch)
  • 75g self-raising flour
  • 75g rice crispies
  • spray oil

Buttermilk

  • 250ml oat milk
  • 1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice
  • 50ml Crackd egg replacer or other liquid whole egg replacer

Instructions

Spice Mix

  • Mix all the spices together in a bowl and grind to a fine powder using a pestle and mortar or a herb mill / coffee grinder. Set aside/

Coating

  • Mix the flours together in a large bowl.
  • Gently crush the rice crispies in your hands, making sure to leave plenty of whole pieces. Mix into the flour.
  • Add the spices and stir to mix.

Chick'n

  • Tear the seitan chick'n loaves into roughly equal sized pieces.
  • Add to a dish and cover with the buttermilk. Cover and place in the fridge for 15 mins to marinade.
  • Working in batches of around 8 at a time (depending on the size of your air fryer), roll the seitan pieces in the coating, spray all over with spray oil until wet, then cook in an air fryer at 200°C for 8 mins. You can also oven bake 200°C fan assisted.
  • Tip into a bowl and spray all over with oil again, turn them to make sure they are all covered. Cook for a further 5 mins in the air fryer at 200°C. Serve hot!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
 

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